Cascadia Crit Series: Fremont RACE REPORT

[race report from from our new upstart in seattle, eric cockrell.  who by the way we are all very proud of him representing the b+ colors in the northwest and his first outing in a crit.]

The course was super fast (less than 1k), wide and had 3 corners, one of them being a nasty u turn. There was a crash at that turn on every lap, and it was definitely on everyones mind everytime we came around. This totally could have been becasue it was a 4/5 race, but from what i heard, there were still a lot of bails in the womens, and the 1/2/3's. I took as much advice as I could retain through the butterflys. I showed up early (didn't pre reg) and warmed up on the course to get comfortable, I even started dead center very front with no trouble clipping in after the whistle. stayed pretty hydrated, but could have drank more during.

40 minute race, field of 75, and I was able to hold the 6th wheel for the first 15 or so minutes (missing the primes by inches, SO FRUSTRATING), then I really started to have trouble maintaining my speed out of the corners...slowly dropping back. I eventually found myself in a small group of 7 or 8, and nobody wanted to work together to catch up. One of the guys in our group was yelling at everyone trying to get a pace line going and it seemed like him and I were the only ones that cared at that point, and it showed. We started to make some progress on bridging the already too large of a gap when we were dropped out with about 6 laps left.

Overall, pleased for my first crit. I expect to do much better on Saturday, .8miles, 4 corners (one of them downhill) lots of brick, rain, and loud drunks.

VIA Polar:

Time- 29:46.0

AvgHR- 174bpm

MaxHR- 183bpm

Kcal- 575

Dist- 11.4miles

Avg Spd- 23mph

Max Spd- 29.1mph

MT HAMILTON WIN

WIN WIN WIN, team becher+ takes the mt. hamilton road race.  
kristopher tjernell, in true b+ fashion, won with a solo attack on the attacking front few.  [race report to follow]

patrick piccolo having fun in the heat

benjamin barry looking strong as always

EXTRA EXTRA, read all about it

first win of 2010
sean neilson ripped the field at the red trolley crit in san diego this past sunday [7 feb 2010] and took the first win of the season for team becher+. we are all on cloud 9.

not only did sean rip it up on sunday in the crit, he mounted a superb campaign on saturday at the epic boulevard road race, coming in 8th after a long cold, wet effort.  any top 10 finish at boulevard is a huge achievement.

the team is looking forward to giving sean and others more support in the coming months, so look for more wins and plenty of top 10 finishes, as this is finally our year to dominate. our whole team this year is full of depth, strength, courage, discipline and all out desire by everyone to work for the team and attack the field, good results will only follow.

i have a few more posts coming, as we have had our first team camp a few weeks ago, which was a huge success and other team news. we would of course like to thank our sponsors for helping to make sean's win possible, becher+, enervit, bobo's hamburgers, masi, midnight oil creative, iMartin, and greg jarrett. we would also like to thank all of those companies that give us support, especially louis garneau.

[sean's race reports]

boulevard road race

Today was the boulevard road race and someone ordered a lot of rain.

The day was filled with rain and cold. The highest temp I saw all day was 46 degrees. The course begins with a fair climb that leads into a long shallow descent then climbs back up to the start. Climbs are average 5 to 6% grade. We did roughly 50 miles, 2 laps.

100 people strarted in the rain and cold. But once we were rolling the temp wasn’t such an issue as the body heat rose. With the centerline rule in effect and a full field I knew position was most important. I got a good start and was never outside the top 10. The first half lap was fairly easy with a tempo pace. After that first half lap though legs and lungs were burning. Being at 4000 feet the air was thin. A group of us began to ride away from the group, about 15 of us. The pace was high and I was sucking air on the climb. I was shelled and in pain.

The rain didn’t let up and the chase began as I was beginning to feel better. I chased for a bit and caught up to a group of 4 guys and worked with them trading pulls and trying to close down the gap. On the last big climb I was feeling good and went to take my pull and just kept pulling until I realized I had some how ridden the whole group off my wheel leaving me to cross the line alone. Ended up 8th, unfortunately out of points and money.

Boulevard Road Race  (Rank 2.0)
Category 4
Place	License	Name	Team	SoCal Points
1	270784	Brian Wilson	Moment Cycle Sport	28
2	256517	Henry Valenzuela lll	PAA / RE/MAX	22
3	294285	Marco Menchaca	TriSports Cycling/Eclipse Racing	20
4	269508	Nick Gillock	Herbalife LaGrange	18
5	292387	Brien Miller	Unattached	16
6	295278	Roman Gama	Citrus Valley Velo	14
7	288624	Jonathan Hornbeck	Team Ranchos	12
8	288949	Sean Neilson	Team Becher+	10
9	272524	Taylor Vaccari	Coates Cyclery Racing Team	8
10	20386	Jay LaRiviere	Peninsula Cycle Club	6

red trolley crit

Red Trolley Crit. Today was the exact opposite to yesterday. Nice blue skies with some clouds and a bit of wind.

The course is super fun with turns 1 and 2 flat and turn 3 being a fast sweeper downhill and a bit tighter but fast and fun! After turn 4 is a big ring climb that flattens to the start/finish line. Front straight had a bit of a head/cross wind and between 1 and 2 a cross wind. Rest of the course was tailwind and fast.

After yesterday having a good night relaxing and resting I felt good. From the start pace was high and the group was dropping riders every lap. I would consistently keep myself at the front being protected on the headwind and using the tailwind to my advantage to move forward. With about 20 minutes left I and another fella gave it a go and attacked the group on the climb. We would last for 1 lap as the group wasn’t going to let us go. So I would just make sure I wouldn’t let myself get swarmed and as soon as it would begin to get crowded at the front I would get up and push the pace a bit to keep position. Halfway through last lap attacks started to come so I pushed to keep with front group. Went so fast through last corner I drifted a bit before opening up a sprint on the climb probably about 8th wheel back. I went wide while everybody was wrestling for inside line and just put my head down and butt up. I was able to hold pace and come accross the line arms in the air and a loud ‘yeah!’

I couldn’t be any happier to deliever the first win of many for Team Becher+ in 2010!

weekend race reports [4 - 5 july 2009]

[Davis Crit report]
Full Field, L shaped course.
Good and fast sustained pace. Had a bad start, it took a few laps to move to the front where I wanted to be. Sat up there fine until the pace grew towards the end. My legs were fried from Leesville the day before and mentally I don’t think I had much business being there. 20 guys or so got pulled from falling off the back and there was a good crash half way through which Ryan narrowly avoided. He finished about 10th (?) and I was somewhere behind him in the middle.
Lots of fun, not much suffering involved relative to the day before.
10 races done, I should move up to CAT 4’s here soon, time for cross season!!
[benjamin barry]

[Leesville Gap Road Race Report]
Leesville is hell, but hell is not nearly as bad when 15 degrees cooler and properly prepared. (although being prepared still isn’t good enough, as you will here later) First want to give a shout out to John and Sage because they were able to show up and race, john shook off a shift to make it and Sage came out and raced his first road race ever, although he is a natural and races in “A”s during cross season, so the most seasoned racer among us.

Leesville is one large 62 mile loop, that starts in farm land, climbs 1500 feet to drop you into a valley, then climb out and back to farm land for the longest 15 mile homestretch ever.
The race started with a mile neutral start, which pretty lasted the first 10 miles as we approached the climb. But once we the road pitched up a little, the road when it wasn’t dirt was worse, Pot holes and bumps and lumps. After the required shouting at each other bike handling skills the group settled into the approach. No real moves as we constantly passed downed riders fixing flats or clutching shattered carbon rims. Sage’s front dérailleur malfunctioned and first one dropped off but made it back to the pack in time for the climb.
Then the climb which is about 6-7% for 5km, This was the big test. Becher was riding in the front as the climb started, but we got strung out as the rest of the peloton did. Me and Kris were up in front, with rest of crew not far behind. Half way up I am starting to over cook and Kris flats, (second to drop) so I know I need to keep with the leaders cause I am the only one repping “LG” at the front. When we crest the hill, it is myself and 4 other guys. who form up quick and start cruising and we never look back.
Kris has fixed the flat in record time, and joins up briefly with Ben, they split ben going to get Sage and then power it, and Kris charging forward. Ben has his work cut out, trying to keep his fellow cyclo crosser from trouble.
Kris and John join briefly, before parting ways and both powering it home.
Meanwhile in my group, we have dropped 1 kid and established that 1 other was not going to work, but was going to hard to drop. Once we got to the flat that what we eventually did. At that point it was me and two other guys, one got 3rd in Copperopolis and the other is a pro mountain biker. However we took a wrong turn and the non worker is able to re-attach, and stay attached till the end. We sprinted but I was just out of gas, and had already pushed through cramping to just make it there. I ended up in 4th, which I feel good about.
Kris ended up around 9th
John was a few back
Ben and Sage were a few back from that maybe 18th

Felt good, ready for some more racing.
[ryan drobek]